A Past Remembered, A Future Yet Uncertain
by summerdaze87
Summary: With his memory restored, a new puzzle has presented itself: Can he be David Webb again? Or is it to late to reclaim the life he once led? Short one-shot, may add a sequel later... Nicky/Bourne


I do not own any of the Bourne movies, books, characters… You get the hint. This just kind of came to me; I hope you like it. -Jess

He was not Jason Bourne. Nor was he any longer David Webb. Despite the fact that the memory of the life he had once led had returned in full, he still did not know who he was now. David Webb had been a happy man, a man with a bright future- a wife he'd loved with all his heart, a daughter who'd had him wrapped around her little finger from the moment she'd entered the world. He was a man who had lost both.

And so he had become Jason Bourne, a man desperate to escape the pain his only child's death had brought him. He'd wanted to lose himself, to be somebody else… to be nothing at all. He'd accomplished that. For years, he'd killed without thought, taken the lives of people he'd never so much as waved hello to in passing. Until he'd seen her.

All it had taken was a glimpse, a single look at that little girl for his mind to rebel. He could no longer be a heartless assassin; he could not kill that little girl's father. His heart had remembered then, though his mind had taken longer. Years longer.

How many times had his past, the past he'd once tried to desperately to forget and later found himself vigorously fighting to remember, caught up to him in the three years he'd been hunting for answers? How many times had it looked him in the eyes, had he held it in his arms?

He had those answers now, along with a new set of questions. Would she forgive him? Did she still love him? Would she believe him if he told her his heart still belonged to her?

He didn't want to think about the rest, about his mother and father, his brothers and sister. Not yet. He tried to tell himself that they had to accept him back into their lives; he was family. Flesh and blood. But he couldn't. He'd hurt them as badly as he'd ever hurt anybody. He'd taken their son, their brother, away. He'd broken his family into pieces.

So he didn't think about that, didn't think about them. He focused his efforts on finding her instead. It wasn't difficult, not at all, once the memories had started to flood in. She would never admit it, would argue herself breathless if anyone told her, but she was predictable. To him, at least, if not to anyone else. But, then, she was a part of him. In his blood, in his mind, in his heart.

Hesitantly, with all the courage he could muster, he knocked on her door. He could have disabled the alarm, could have snuck in and caught her off-guard. But he couldn't do that, not to her, not again. He wanted her, wanted her to love him, to smile at him, to laugh with him, to share a life with him. Above all, he wanted her happiness, her safety, her security. He would not be the one to take it away from her again.

He heard laughter inside, thought about turning on his heel and leaving, but the door was answered before he could. She stood before him, and he prayed this would not be the last time he ever stood this close to her. He couldn't find his voice, nor any words to speak. It seemed like an eternity to him before she broke the silence.

"Jason? What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice filled with curiosity and wonder. She wasn't upset, not unhappy to see him. At least, not yet.

He had to clear his throat twice before the words would come. "I, uh, I needed to…" Needed to what? What had he needed to do? Apologize for throwing his life away? For throwing their life away? For hurting her, over and over again? For forgetting her?

Yes. That's exactly what he needed to do. "I'm sorry, Nic. I'm so sorry." He filled his voice with every ounce of conviction in his body, hoping she would accept it, hoping she would forgive him.

It wasn't the words he spoke, or even the nickname he hadn't used in years, but the look in his eyes that had her stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him. Not just wrapping her arms around him, even, but throwing herself into his arms. And when he wrapped his arms around her just as tightly, held on as though he'd never again let go, she knew for sure.

Tears streamed down both of their faces, mingling together as they flowed free, but neither cared. He was home. Here, in her arms, was home to him, just as his arms were where she belonged. He was alive, he remembered… he'd come home.

Neither of them could say how long they stood there, wrapped in one another's embrace, before the tinkling sound of childish laughter broke the spell that had woven itself around them and cast another in its place. Slowly, not daring to believe his ears, he raised his head from its resting place in the crook of her neck.

His knees nearly buckled, he was so surprised. How many miracles could one man be granted? Surely, he'd already received more than his fair share. But, God, how he wanted this to be real. Wanted- no, needed- it to be her. Eyes filled with confusion shifted to the woman in his arms, to his wife. "Nicky?"

She shook her head and, for a moment, he feared the worst and felt like he'd lost his child all over again. "It was all them, David," she told him, using his name, his real name. "They took her to make you vulnerable, but you wouldn't give up. Wouldn't stop searching until you'd found her and brought her home. So they staged her death. And you… You became vulnerable, just the way they wanted. You became the man they wanted you to be. And when that was done, they brought her home. It was a media circus; a little girl thought dead was home once again, safe and sound. But her father was dead, and it broke my heart that you wouldn't ever get to see her again. And then I saw you again, only you didn't know me, didn't remember me, or her, or our life together."

His mind slowly processed what she was telling him and, for the first time in six years, he was whole again. His wife was in his arms, looking up at him with so much love in her eyes that he could hardly speak, and their daughter was standing beside her, waiting to be included in the family embrace.

No longer a seven year old little girl, the gangly blond before him would be a teenager in a week. The smile that was so much like her mother's, the freckles that dotted her pert little nose, the eyes that mirrored his own… Despite the years that had passed, she was still his little girl.

"Jaime," he croaked her name, his throat clogged with emotion.

"Daddy," Jaime cried, tears spilling down her pale cheeks as she threw herself at her parents, and his knees did buckle then. He fell to the porch's wooden deck, taking Nicky right along with him, and pulled his daughter onto his lap. As he held his wife and daughter tightly, something in his mind clicked. _I am David Webb_, he thought to himself without any doubt at all.


End file.
